The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Whenever there is an important vacancy to be filled in Austria, both the relevant circles and the otherwise all-wise gentlemen of Viennese journalism are at a loss. They always claim that there is no suitable person with the knowledge and skills to fill the position in question. We are currently experiencing this again in the management crisis at the Burgtheater. We would have to fear for the decline of German science and art if we were really as poor in outstanding personalities as a local critic recently wants us to believe when he says: "And there is probably no one who unites the necessary qualities, because if there were one, all eyes would have long since rested on him. There is no way we will get the ideal of a Burgtheater director. We will have to lower our standards and make do with a halfway suitable personality instead of a completely suitable one (Edm. Wengraf in the "Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung" of January 12 of this year [1890]." These words are simply ridiculous; they are only surpassed in senselessness by what Ludwig Speidel wrote in the last Sunday feature of the "Neue Freie Presse", which culminated in the following: "We have no man in the whole of Austria and Germany, apart from Baron Berger, who can now run the Burgtheater. Even if this omission by Speidel borders on the comical and should therefore cause only laughter in anyone with insight, we cannot consider it to be entirely harmless. For Speidel's influence on the leading circles of the Burgtheater is great, and his word is listened to. We do not know how this critic gained such influence. It sounds downright heretical to local ears, but it has to be said: Speidel's reputation is largely made. He writes in a way that appeals to a certain section of the Viennese public, witty, witty, but he is without any thoroughness; he has neither artistic principles nor a purified, consolidated taste. Ludwig Speidel's style is admired. Basically, however, it is only a somewhat better newspaper style, which often twists and turns the truth in order to conclude a paragraph with a witty turn of phrase; this is then pleasing, and one does not ask whether what is claimed is true... We now fear that, as so often, this man's voice will be heard this time too. But this time it would be the most dangerous. For our Burgtheater is indeed facing a great danger. Above all, it is in danger of falling completely flat with the comedy. What we have seen in this direction recently, what tastes have been expressed in it, has only recently been hinted at in these papers. It was mostly quite worthless 'theatricality', but it was excellently acted. The art of acting in our Burgtheater does indeed seem to want to emancipate itself completely from dramatic art. The fact that the late Förster was much more important as a director than as a dramaturge contributed to this. This is a pointer to what should be considered above all else when choosing a future director. It will now be a question of a director who has enough insight and understanding to find the truly valuable, the lasting from the dramatic literature of the present, and who has what is called an "aesthetic conscience", which forbids him to allow mere play manufacturers such as Schönthan, Herzl, Fulda, Blumenthal to enter the Burgtheater. We can never expect the same from men like v. Werther and Savits. They would certainly be excellent directors, but they are least likely to be free from the mistake of performing bad dramas for the sake of grateful roles.

We have seen how the above error took deepest root precisely at the time when a stage veteran like Sonnenthal was in charge of the Burgtheater. For all his importance as an actor and director, Sonnenthal lacked any understanding of dramatic art. We fear the same from v. Werther and Savits. The names Spielhagen, Paul Heyse and Hans Hopfen were also mentioned. The first two would hardly accept an appointment; Hans Hopfen, however, is far too superficial in his literary work for the Burgtheater to expect anything from him. It has also been rightly remarked that these latter three personalities have looked around far too little in the dramatic arts to be able to cope with the second task that falls to the future Burgtheater director: creating order in the staff. Our really good people have grown old and will soon need to be replaced. With the exception of Miss Reinhold, our younger ones are almost completely insignificant. They simply have to be tidied up. The future director will have to have the energy to say to some young actors: "I can't use you; we have to make room for something better."

So what is the point if Speidel can only recommend his protégé, Baron Berger, to these urgent needs of the Viennese court theater: he knows the conditions at the Burgtheater, he was able to acquire a sense for the specifics of "Viennese" acting during his time as secretary. That is petty. But we need a man with an eye for the big picture, with full aesthetic and dramaturgical insight. Baron Berger is not that. In his university lectures here he has shown that he has the wrong idea of the position of dramatic art in relation to drama; he has shown that he is capable of giving lectures in a feuilleton style and in dazzling speech, but not that he has appropriated the German view of art.

But what Ludwig Speidel does not seem to know, because he only passes over his name in passing, is that we actually have a good dramaturgical writer who has shown in recent years with every new publication that he has grown, and that is now Heinrich Bulthaupt. Equipped with a fine understanding of the inner technique and aesthetics of drama, few can compete with him when it comes to a penetrating understanding of the art of acting. When Ludwig Speidel accuses him of showing little understanding of the peculiarities of the Burgtheater's acting art, we have a number of things to say about this. Firstly, this art has certain great merits to which a man like Bulthaupt in particular cannot close his mind; secondly, however, it has faults, faults which Bulthaupt can see, but not Ludwig Speidel, because he helped to bring them up. And finally, there is the fact that Bulthaupt's dramatic insight has grown so much since that publication on the Munich Gesamtgastspiel, on which Speidel bases his opinion, that his present ability must no longer be judged by that work, but by his last, quite extraordinary publications on the "Dramaturgy of Opera" and the dramaturgy of our classics.

"Yes, but do we really have to go abroad; can't we find a suitable man in Vienna?" we hear the supporters of a certain literary mutual insurance company exclaim. Without going any further into the distastefulness of this speech, we would like to remark that we should be shown the man in Vienna who fulfills the above conditions. Various names are mentioned: Friedrich Uhl at first, then more recently even Ganghofer, Schwarzkopf, Hevesi and Müller-Guttenbrunn. We don't need to talk any further about Ganghofer, Schwarzkopf and Hevesi. As far as Uhl is concerned, we must say that his reviews in the "Wiener Zeitung" do indeed appear to us at the moment to be the best Viennese theater criticism; but the others are all on such a level that they cannot be seriously reckoned with at all. However, this does not mean that someone is predestined to be the director of the Burgtheater. that he possesses a refined and purified judgment in the face of boundless ignorance and tastelessness. As for Müller-Guttenbrunn, we would have been pleased to see him at the head of the Deutsches Volkstheater at the time: now that he is praising the bad play "Die Hochzeit von Valeni" with morality and indignation at the mediocrity of that theater's performances in his mouth, we have come back from it. For the Burgtheater, however, its power seems to us altogether too small.

We do not indulge in the hope that the crisis in the Burgtheater will be solved in the sense indicated above; but then we also know that the choice will not be a bad one for lack of a suitable personality for the direction of the Burgtheater, but for lack of those personalities who would be suitable for seeking it.

We already referred to the sad state of our newspaper criticism in the previous issue, when we discussed the question of management at the Burgtheater. We must come back to this again, because the weakness of this criticism is one of the main reasons why our theaters cannot develop in a healthy way. It is responsible for the decline of the Burgtheater, just as it makes it impossible for the Volkstheater to rise to a certain artistic height. Criticism has a twofold task. One towards the art institutions, the other towards the audience. Towards the theater it is incumbent on it to have a stimulating influence on the presentation. Artists will gladly learn from serious criticism based on principles; they will never learn the slightest thing from nagging, arbitrary criticism. But the audience, too, will gladly form its judgment in comparison with that of the critic, purify its taste, if it knows that it is confronted with a criticism that is based on artistic insight. Our theater criticism completely lacks this necessary foundation. That is why it is of no value to the actor or the audience. We can always observe how miserable this criticism is when it is confronted with a task that requires true knowledge and a genuine formation of taste, where the empty phrases of the ignorant newspaper writer are of no use. Quite apart from older examples, let us recall only some of the most recent, the performances of "Galeotto", "Gyges and his Ring" and the "Jewess of Toledo". "Galeotto" is one of the greatest dramatic creations. The play is of subtle psychological truth and allows us to see conflicts that provide a deep insight into the human heart. The Viennese critics were simply blunt in the face of this greatness. They had no idea that the Spanish poet had grasped a problem and dramatized it with tremendous power, one of the most subtle that only any artist can pose. With an unbelievable superficiality of judgment, even for the less educated, reference was made to the horrible, exciting things that shake the nerves! Only those who have no idea of the terrible power of the emotional forces at work in the characters of the play can speak in this way. Only those who can fully comprehend this shattering tragedy know the truth of the exciting external events. Our critics were equally perplexed by "Gyges and his Ring". In this drama, Hebbel raised himself to a height of contemplation that can only be reached by those who have an awareness of how the forces of nature intersect and fight in the human soul, how a repetition of life in the universe takes place in every human breast.

It is a deeply mystical idea that we encounter in this drama. It is true that Hebbel himself once hinted in the drama that his creation is to be understood in this sense, to be judged from this point of view; but such hints are too tenuous for our critics. One would have to be thoroughly educated to understand them. And so we had to listen to the most petty questions being asked about Hebbel's cosmic poetry, such as: whether the figures are possible, whether the ending is satisfying and so on. If it is a matter of the critic's insight and understanding being ahead of the audience, then he must put his foot down. No one needs a critic to know that the "onlooker" is an "animal in a figurative sense", that you don't know which faculty a Blumenthal doctor belongs to.

The "Jewess of Toledo" recently suffered a bad fate from the critics' lack of judgment. It was to the great credit of the late Förster that this play was revived. For even if it is not Grillparzer's most artistically rounded, most classically accomplished drama, it is undoubtedly the most interesting. What is interesting above all is how the hero fulfills his destiny. The king does not perish like an ordinary tragic hero, but undergoes a process of purification. Through the inner experience he has had with the passionate Jewish girl, a new man emerges in him. He sheds everything that has bound him to his previous life, his self undergoes a metamorphosis. Death is a much lesser atonement than this continued existence with the voluntary abandonment of everything that has so far made up the sum of his existence. He also divests himself of his sovereignty, his royal dignity. Grillparzer has thus dramatized a great idea of primitive Christianity. He has shown how a deeply penetrating inner experience can destroy a person's entire superficial self without him having to perish physically. The deeper self is able to assert itself in the face of such a complete reversal of moral views, to regard the rest of life in a new form as a duty and thus to accomplish the highest dramatic atonement for itself. Next to this figure of the king stands Rachel, the Jewish girl, as a no less interesting phenomenon. Drawing a figure like this is the height of artistic perfection. For Rachel unites in herself the most incredible psychological contrasts, and the poet has succeeded in uniting the opposites in one person in such a way that it works with convincing truth. This girl is frivolous and naïve at the same time, coquettish and graceful, she is rotten at heart and yet innocent again, she is demonic and at the same time superficial. But all these contradictions are woven into a picture full of the truth of life. But you have to let this picture work on you in life in order to see all its charms; Rachel could only trick the king for so long as he saw her before him with every fiber of her body fully alert. He had to come to his senses immediately when this magic of childlike agility was no longer there. And therein lies the psychological reason why he is healed by the evil "pull around the mouth" in the face of the corpse. The train around the mouth is only the symbol of how those contradictions could only become credible and appealing through such a life. Our critics have probably paid little attention to proper aesthetic studies, which is why they have no idea of the significance of the symbolic in this art. To systematically work through subtle books, such as Volkelt's "On the Concept of Symbol in Modern Aesthetics", certainly requires a certain amount of education. Today, people prefer to criticize on the fly, as the mood and other circumstances dictate.

But with poets such as Hebbel, Grillparzer and so on, only the tools of full aesthetic insight are sufficient. We have only recently gained a new understanding of the depth of Grillparzer's mind when we read the excellent book by Emil Reich: "Grillparzer's Philosophy of Art" (Vienna 1890), in which we find a picture of this poet's entire view of art.

We have used concrete examples to show how inadequate our criticism is. In one of the next issues, we want to talk about the pernicious influence of this criticism on the public's taste and need for art.

Nowadays, you either have to join the unconditional praisers of everything that comes out of the press, or you are regarded by certain people as a darkling and a backward step. This time, even at the risk of being labeled with these unflattering predicates, we must discuss a profound, harmful influence of our newspaper system on our education.

The party, whose political creed is expressed in these newspapers, has repeatedly castigated the reprehensible corruption of the contemporary press and has always been concerned about how it could initiate a worthy and beneficial development of the newspaper industry for the German people. When one speaks of "corruption", however, one usually has in mind only that external corruption which consists in the fact that the journalist represents everything for money, that he is open to every kind of bribery. But there is also an inner corruption of the press, the consequences of which are already noticeable everywhere. We mean the corruption of the German style and the German treatment of language. One should not underestimate this fact. A national party in particular must attach importance to the fact that its views and ideas are expressed in a manner appropriate to the nation and in keeping with its nature. A developed, secure feeling for language, which feels with certainty towards every word, every phrase: "this is German or this is not German", is a necessary requirement of every educated German. But no one should demand this more than those who want to set themselves up as representatives of public opinion. In our Viennese newspapers, including the "leading" "Neue Freie Presse", we now find the grossest violations of the feeling for language. Anyone who has a sense and feeling for the German way of speaking, if he reads newspapers at all, can only be indignant at the offense against his mother tongue. He will find that almost every editorial in the "Neue Freie Presse" is teeming with stylistic aberrations, with un-German phrases. Sentences in which the subject is in the wrong place, sentences in which the active instead of the passive form is used, incorrectly placed participles and subordinate clauses can be found in every column of the aforementioned "Weltblatt". Jewish dialectal expressions and other expressions that make a mockery of the German language can be found in every third sentence.

The German language, like Latin, is a strict expression of logic; it permits a precision of speech that few others can match. Our journalism knows how to distort every thing in this language to the point of obscurity and ambiguity. Our language is plain and simple, our newspaper German is screwed and ornate. Our German writers are characterized by a high degree of nobility in the construction of their language; journalism is expressed in an almost scurrilous manner: slovenly, shaky, hurling. The whole of Europe admires our prose writers for the strict organization of their intellectual products; our newspaper prose is confused, without any structure, disjointed. The Germans, when they speak in their way, look for the most characteristic expression for a thought that hits the nail on the head; journalism only looks for the most ingratiating word, regardless of whether it is appropriate to the subject.

Anyone who has the opportunity to listen to public speeches will soon be able to observe the fruits of this activity. The audience involuntarily forms itself according to this newspaper German, and to its greatest astonishment one will often enough find oneself in the position of hearing thoroughly un-German expressions from the mouths of people one would never have expected. You wouldn't believe the influence the press has on our entire intellectual life. There are countless people whose reading is almost exclusively their favorite newspaper. We can see how some people have a completely different view from that of the liberal newspapers, but how formally their spirit, their way of speaking and thinking is completely oriented towards them. And this influence is even more pernicious than that exerted by the reprehensible views of the papers themselves, for it causes an unconscious turning away from our national character.

At present, the corruption of style to which we have alluded is even on the increase. It is gradually spreading to our brochures and specialist journals, and even more so to a large part of our book literature.

We were recently horrified when we went through several issues of a young journal for national and state economics published in Vienna by a Mr. Theodor Hertzka. You can open it wherever you like and your eyes will fall on a stylistic monstrosity. However, these are not things that are only noticeable to the stylistic connoisseur, but things that every halfway talented boy in the fourth year of grammar school avoids. The same can be found in other specialist journals, especially in medical and scientific journals, if you want to see for yourself. Anyone who doubts our assertion with regard to brochure literature should buy half a dozen political or economic publications, as they appear here or elsewhere, and they will recognize their beloved newspaper German.

The point is quite right, I hear various people object, but it should be borne in mind that such a newspaper article is written for the day and therefore the demands in terms of correctness cannot be too high. The paper lies open for a day and then disappears forever. How should a writer apply the same degree of polish to such an ephemeral product that one applies to something permanent? But this objection is completely unjustified. For whoever has a certain style at all, expresses it whether he writes for the day or for eternity. For style is something so interwoven with the spiritual being that every thought is necessarily expressed in the way the writer is accustomed to. Every truly stylistically gifted person has only one style, and he writes in this style because he cannot do otherwise. The reason why our journalists write in a sloppy and un-German way is not that they don't want to write better, but that they can't write better. We know quite well that good German writers do not become un-German once they publish articles in a newspaper. Or is the aesthete Vischer not always the same man of pithy, truly German style, whether he is writing about scientific subjects or about "foot care on the railroad"? How finely and elegantly Josef Bayer, for example, writes, even if he is only writing a newspaper article; how plain and simple is the writing of many a man whose words disappear with the day just like those of the reporter. But good stylists would have to deny themselves if they wanted to write differently than is their nature.

We will only mention in passing that the evil we are discussing has already found its way into our school and academic reference books.

Although we have to admit that corruption of style is currently on the increase, we are not without hope for the future. With the strengthening of the national party, which is built on the basis of genuine folklore, a more prosperous development must also occur here. In many cases, the un-folkish spelling is merely a side effect of the old liberal, equally un-folkish attitude and will probably disappear with it.

We have repeatedly pointed out the decline of theater life in our imperial city in these pages. We have shown that stage managers and critics are losing their understanding and audiences are losing their receptiveness to artistic value, and that there is now only a need for light merchandise, sensational plays and frivolous entertainment. Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn's book "Das Wiener Theaterleben", recently published by Otto Spamer in Leipzig, deals with this subject in detail. The book wants to protest against the development that our theater life has taken in recent years; it wants to gain clues for a cure by objectively examining the mistakes that have been made. The book must be described as a manly deed, which shows on every page that its author, who has been dealing with the relevant circumstances for years, is deeply serious about artistic life. We find the current situation characterized with sharp words: "The Burgtheater is facing the bureaucratic adventure of a Burckhard management, the Deutsches Volkstheater has become a source of income without artistic character, the Theater an der Wien and the Carl-Theater have yet to regain their lost balance. The lack of historical sense, the disregard for tradition, weighs like a curse on our theater life, and it is one of the noblest tasks of this writing to bring out the historical sense in Viennese artistic life, to demonstrate the value of tradition." What Müller-Guttenbrunn means by this "historical sense" needs to be explained. As a rule, a theater was created with a very specific task, it served a limited field of art. Only in this way could it employ truly remarkable artists and achieve good things. The wider the circle it draws for its artistic achievements, the more artists it needs; it will then have to let them go idle a lot, which is only conceivable with mediocre forces. Only if an art institute remains true to its original purpose, if it does not go beyond the circle it has drawn for itself in order to compete with other theaters, only then will it continue to be a need for the public. But if tradition is put on the back burner and all theaters begin to compete with each other in the same tasks, then they are all working towards their ruin. The Carl Theater, for example, was unable to thrive because it did not stick to its original task, the Parisian Schwank, but wanted to compete with the Stadttheater and the Wiedener Theater; the Wiedener Theater, which had grown up as an operetta theater, was competing with the others, and recently even with the Volkstheater. It is also wrong of our court theaters to engage in the performance of plays that they should leave to the private theaters. The Burgtheater performs French sensational dramas that only belong in the Carl Theater, and Müller-Guttenbrunn aptly remarks of the Court Opera: "Today the Court Opera has the same absorbing power as the Burgtheater, and just as here the cultivation of great poetry often has to give way to the cultivation of Parisian box-office magnets, so in the Court Opera everything often takes a back seat to the modern ballet. "Excelsior, "Wiener Walzer", "Die Puppenfee", "Sonne und Erder" dominate entire seasons, and recently, the opera has also taken up a larger part of the annual schedule, and even an old operetta by Suppe (the opera "Das Pensionav") has been attempted."

What Müller-Guttenbrunn demands is a strict division of the theaters' performances, whereby the two court theatres should take advantage of their more favorable financial situation by focusing exclusively on artistic tasks. The author sharply criticizes the fact that the awareness of this duty has almost completely disappeared from the management of these court theatres. He says: "In the Vienna Court Opera House there is room for Bachrich, Pfeffer, Hager and Robert Fuchs and none - but no, we don't want to mention the relegated ones." And he is equally eloquent about the performances themselves: "The emphasis is on external splendor, on pomp, and the audience has been so spoiled by this that the Court Opera is today the absolute and sole ruler of the Imperial City's stage productions. One of the most insubstantial and crass masterpieces of contemporary opera, the "Vasall von Szigeth", dominates the 1889/90 season as a novelty; the magnificent set bears the vain, almost incomprehensible libretto.... " "And it must be described as a barbaric phenomenon that the one-act ballets, equipped with all their splendor, have exerted such a devastating influence on our opera audiences that entire operas, even "Fidelio", are performed in front of half-empty houses, because one only comes into the house for the "appendix", for the "train piece" of the evening!" Müller-Guttenbrunn's words about the personnel of the Court Opera are also worth taking to heart: "In general, the artists of the Vienna Court Opera stand high. Its orchestra is unique in the world, and its vocal forces are constantly renewed from the best voices in Europe... Despite all this, the shortcomings in the personnel of the Vienna Court Opera cannot be concealed. We currently lack a poetic first baritone, we completely lack a master of colorful singing. They let Miss Bianca Bianchi go, made the miserable experiment with Broch and now committed themselves to Miss Abendroth. But this singer is to the Court Opera exactly what Miss Swoboda is to the Burgtheater - she is completely immature, she belongs in the conservatory. There is also a lack of a successor for Ms. Materna, and this is almost more necessary than the one for Ms. Wolter at the Burgtheater... Our busiest tenor, Mr. Georg Müller, is also singing at the end of his career; our Buffo Mayerhofer has passed this end; he has been singing without a voice for ten years. If you want to see our opera at its peak, just listen to a performance of "Lohengrin"; if you want to get to know it at its lowest point, listen to "Lucia", sung by Mr. Müller and Mr. Horwitz and Miss Abendroth. Mr. van Dyk joined us with high hopes; but in a year and a half he has only managed three roles." We have quoted these judgments of Müller-Guttenbrunn about the Court Opera in greater detail because they prove to us that the general decline of the arts has not spared this institution either, and because it is precisely this chapter of the book in question that seems to us to have been most carefully worked out. Here the author delves much deeper into the subject than in the other sections. I am reluctant to censure, but least of all do I like having to criticize a book that undoubtedly has great merits. But there is a fundamental flaw that will make the effect that the book should otherwise have impossible. This is very regrettable.

This shortcoming is particularly evident in the chapter on the Burgtheater. The treatment remains an external one. The author's point of view is more commercial than purely aesthetic. We do not wish to dispute the justification of the former, but the latter should also be given due consideration. In a book about Viennese theater life, we would also have expected an assessment of Viennese dramatic art. For the general decline of theater life is largely due to the development of acting itself. Our Viennese dramatic art has two living role models: Sonnenthal and the Wolters. Both are important in their own way and can be enchanting, but both are dangerous to their imitators. Both Sonnenthal and the Wolters have major flaws, but these are completely drowned out by their natural artificiality. In their imitators they are magnified and can even produce the absurdity of all theatrical art. Sonnenthal is a great actor, but he plays in a mannered way, he does not play the man, but the actor. That is why Sonnenthal is at his greatest when he has to portray people who are already playing comedy in life. Sonnenthal's mannerism, however, is borne by the artist, which is why, with him, the rationally contrived gesture ceases to be such a gesture. One forgets that so much about this artist is "made". But where Sonnenthal's counter-art, the mannerism with all its faults, comes to light, that is with Robert. This actor lacks artistic soul, every note, every move is "studied", he is an acting technician without actually being an artist. And we notice this flaw in almost all the younger artists at our Burgtheater. They do not know how to free themselves from Sonnenthal's school. We therefore wish the theater a director who would have the courage to form his own opinion of Sonnenthal and be to the younger artists what Sonnenthal can never become to them. At the same time, we have drawn attention to one of the most significant downsides of Sonnenthal's possible directorship. As far as the female forces at the Burgtheater are concerned, we notice far too much of Wolter's influence in them. Wolter is certainly an incomparable artist. But what is great about her cannot be imitated, and what can be imitated is contrary to art. Wolter speaks magnificently; the sound of her voice alone elevates the role to an ideal realm. But she speaks in a manner contrary to the language, incorrectly. Wolter plays with idealistic verve, but she achieves this through means which, considered in themselves, make a mockery of any aesthetic judgment. We would like to say this especially with regard to Miss Barsescu, who should not spoil her great talent by imitating Wolter. In this direction, we definitely missed Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn's critical eye.

We were particularly interested in the part of the book that deals with the Deutsches Volkstheater. After all, this institution must have been particularly close to the heart of the author, who had a great deal to do with its creation. He remarks very aptly: "The faulty, completely inadequate management of the Deutsches Volkstheater, which has enjoyed the warmest participation of the Viennese public for six months and has become a 'goldmine' for Mr. Geiringer, can be proven in all directions. The staffing level is still unworthy of a Viennese theater. It lacks a first lover, a heroic father, a heroine, a naïf, a soubrette. The salon lady is an unknown entity on this stage, the role of a Second Lover is in the hands of a chargen player. There is no director or dramaturge." Müiller-Guttenbrunn also finds the repertoire completely inadequate. "More than thirty performances of "The Marriage of Valeni", twenty-three performances of "The Famous Wife" and just as many of "Schönthan's Last Word" describe the situation here. Eighty days for Schönthan and Ganghofer-Brociner, one hundred for the rest of the literature - who's laughing?" We are in complete agreement with all of this, but we cannot suppress one thing. We would have expected Adam Müiller-Guttenbrunn, after the performance of the "Marriage of Valeni", a disgraceful play whose performance was a downright sacrilege on account of its crude power and its crude views, to have simply said: This play must disappear from the repertoire. Perhaps it would have been possible to considerably reduce the "more than thirty performances" that he now criticized. Instead, he pampered the play in an entire feature article in the way we have already discussed in these pages. So what we actually wanted from the book was only partially fulfilled, albeit to an extraordinary degree for this part. But what could have given it the impressive position that we would have wished it to have: to force the leading circles to reflect, that is what it lacks. It would have been an emphasis on the artistic-aesthetic point of view, which would have revealed that the author is at the height of the contemporary view of art and therefore has the full right to judge the relevant questions. As it now stands, it may not even be able to prevent the most pernicious thing that threatens Vienna and its art: the Burckhard directorate.

Anyone who has come to a view of how peoples and ages have achieved great and significant things through contemplation of the historical past cannot help but feel bitter when he looks around him today and sees the spiritual goings-on in the world. It looks rather old-fashioned, the lament into which we are breaking out here, we know that. But we give ourselves up to the hope that there is still enough sense for the natural development of peoples and people to find a hearing for these laments. These are not the complaints of the "old", who no longer want to and can no longer understand the "young" because they cannot get out of their historically inherited prejudices, but rather the complaints of a "young" who could never gain the conviction that "greenness", ignorance and lack of education are worth more than a mind schooled in the great examples of the past.

Recently, one of the "young" gave us the wise advice: we could get along after all. Young people leave their French tutors, salon ladies and so on to old people; they should just leave their worn-out waitresses, modest pimps and drunkards to them. We don't quite understand this peace proposal. For we have never had any desire for the used waitresses and so on; so they remain with the "young gentlemen". But when complete immaturity puts forward such aesthetic drivel in order to justify its insane filthy writing as a direction equal to dignified art, then we reject such an insult to the German national spirit. The German nation must never again tolerate people in its midst giving themselves the honorary title of poet who, in their writings and rhymes, deal with things that, when read, produce nothing in us but the suggestion of a disgusting smell.

We wouldn't pay any further attention to the pundits in question, we would simply leave them to one side as the scribbling rabble, if we hadn't recognized an eminent danger in their appearance. In few periods of time has there been such an aversion to thoroughness and depth as there is today. Where there is a need for spiritual contemplation, a serious engagement with problems, modern man turns away. This is probably because liberalism has exerted its "educational and progressive influence" over many decades! When these intellectually inert people, who are indifferent to idealistic interests, are offered such banal fare as, for example, recently in "Modern Poetry" and similar magazines, and with the pretension that this means just as much as those difficult intellectual tasks of a better age, then their self-confidence, which is based on nothing, grows. She thinks her narrow-mindedness is greatness.

In our view, this "modernity" is nothing but the delusional drivel of the immature sex, acting without the aspiration of maturity. These "moderns" despise the old not out of knowledge, for deeper reasons, but out of ignorance. And this ignorance is the fruit of that laziness that has never wanted to learn anything proper.

Only those who have become masters of the old, who have absorbed it and allowed themselves to be saturated by it, have the right to speak of a longing for the new. When a school of thought and artistic movement has lived out its full potential, when it has brought to fruition all the secret seeds slumbering within it, then it steps away from the stage of history of its own accord, then it gives birth to the new from within itself. It is downright outrageous when the green youth take credit for this "greenness", when they claim it as an advantage, as something special. No, dear "young gentlemen", young people have always been green, but never as cheeky as they are today. Twenty-year-old boys have always written poems and the like, but it has never occurred to them to proclaim themselves the bearers of entirely new epochs.

We appreciate youth because we love strength. We also understand the Sturm und Drang that overshoots the mark, but we firmly reject youthful, powerless, rabble-rousing megalomania.

It must fill us with melancholy when we hear judgments about Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Grillparzer from this side. Without even the slightest hint of a sense of spiritual depth, hollowness takes center stage, without any awareness of the fact that it is unconscionable of the most disgusting kind to pass judgment on a product of the mind that one does not understand.

What we would like to shout to the gentlemen of "Modern Poetry", "Society" and the other representatives of the "Green" principle is: learn something! Nothing is more dangerous than judging before one has reached spiritual maturity. Anyone who sits in the critical judgement seat too early in the face of a spiritual phenomenon makes it impossible for them to allow it to have the proper effect on them.

We do not want to go into the details here. For whether Conrad writes a novel in which things are told that are otherwise done in secluded rooms in order to spare the sense of smell, or whether Hermann Bahr writes a "critical article" in which he announces that the "great death" of the ideal has finally begun and the age of dirt has arrived, or whether a third party sings about the eyes "with the black rim", we are basically indifferent. However, we would like to make a different suggestion to the recent proposal made by the "young" to the "old". Keep the used waitresses, we'll even let you keep the modest pimps; but keep all the riff-raff. For we do not wish to use our noses for aesthetic pleasure even when they are pleasant, let alone when they are touched unpleasantly. For we stick to our old aesthetics to the extent that only the higher senses are aesthetic.

We know well what will be said about these lines in the circles concerned: this is written by a person who is still afflicted by the "old" view of art, who still believes in this garbage of aesthetics and so on, a person who lacks any understanding of the spirit of the age. But my dear "young ones", only believe this: if anything is easy to understand, it is you. For the rest of us need only remember what we understood before we learned anything, then we can grasp you. We are not impressed by such shallowness, by such immaturity.

But if one of "our own" should ask us why we have written this, since more serious people should hardly be interested in dealing with such things, we will answer him: we have written with the feelings of a person who, out of sanitary considerations, feels moved to speak a word when unhealthy elements all around threaten to pollute the air of life.

The above essay seems to me to be of the greatest interest to all those who are interested in dramaturgical questions. The essence of dramatic and acting art cannot be recognized without going back to the primitive forms of this art. It is similar to the history of the development of peoples. We recognize the life of the popular soul by tracing it at its lowest stages, at the point where it begins to stir. We must turn our gaze to the beginnings of historical development. This has its difficulties. The historical tradition becomes all the more inadequate the further back in time we go. The sources dry up all the more the closer we get to prehistoric times. But we have preserved tribes of people who are still at primitive stages of development today. They have stood still while other tribes have developed further. We can use them to study the conditions in which the more highly developed peoples of today once found themselves.

It is no different with all things that are subject to development. Drama and the art of acting are at a high level of development today. However, their primitive beginnings have been preserved in certain events. Something of the essence of drama has always been revealed to me when I have seen the performances of wandering jugglers who amuse the people with simple, crude jokes for a few pennies. These jokes contain all the essentials of what we call dramatic tension and resolution. The entanglements that arise in higher drama from complicated human actions, from psychological links, are present in the basic lines when the buffoon with the corresponding persona develops his jokes before us. What excites and ultimately satisfies us in the finest drama is similar to what the jugglers perform in primitive form in the open air.

The subtle ramifications of the dramatic action deceive us as to the simple elements which cause us to follow in excitement the progress of what is happening on the stage. To unfold the dramatic action in such a way that these simple forces underlie and dominate the process is the poet's art.

The characters who appear in dramatic creations can be reduced to a few basic types. In raw, one-sided, grotesque form, these basic types are contained in the performances of the wandering jugglers.

The stupid man, who is cheated by everyone; the clever man, who is superior to everyone; the wanton man, who commits mischief wherever he can, are such basic types.

The people are not interested in the individual characteristics of single persons, but in the entanglements that arise when the cunning, the crafty, the wanton and the stupid are confronted with each other.

The Hänneschen play described in the above essay represents a level of drama that rises only slightly above the primitive state described. The typical characters that appear in this play are further developments of the basic types described. And the entanglements are of a simple kind; they are those that necessarily result from the relationship between these basic types.

The drama is what has to happen because in the world the stupid confront the clever, the honest the mischievous. The finer characteristics are always only the flesh that clings to the skeleton of simple living conditions. The main effect emanates from this skeleton.

There are stages of dramatic art where the plot is not exactly prescribed. The details are left to momentary inspiration. This is characteristic of all drama. It proves that these details are not important at all. They can be one way or another. The main thing is that there are certain simple, typical intricacies, a certain basic trait in the course of events.

We are astonished when we examine dramatic literature to see what is actually effective in the individual plays. We come up with a few basic developments that are varied in different ways in all dramas.

The study of dramatic technique should go back to these basic developments. The structural relationships of the dramatic actions should be examined. Through their knowledge one arrives at a kind of natural history of drama. We are not yet accustomed to looking at events in drama merely in terms of how these structural relationships are. We are too attached to the material, to what is going on. But the effect depends on how it happens. The effect of a drama does not depend on whether there is seduction, trickery and so on, but on how this seduction, this trickery is connected to the other parts of the dramatic action.

We are not interested in a person appearing in the drama. But we are interested in the situation they find themselves in when they enter into a relationship with people of a different kind.

Whether someone is stupid or clever doesn't interest us in life either. Only if we are in a relationship with someone who is stupid or clever do we care about their state of mind. If there is no such relationship, this state of mind only concerns us insofar as it relates to the environment. In this respect, drama is the most faithful reflection of life.

At the higher levels of education, the circumstances of life are so complicated that their simple basic structure does not always emerge clearly. This basic structure can be observed among simple, uneducated classes. An impartial observer can see how little difference there is between the similar conditions among uneducated people. How a peasant boy falls in love with a peasant girl is repeated in the same way in countless cases. The differences that come into consideration in this basic experience are only of minor importance.

From this point of view, it seems to me that dramatic art, which emerges directly from the popular soul, can claim the highest interest.

The playwright as well as the actor can learn from this art.

In Heinrich Laube's case, it was particularly praised that as a director he understood the art of thread drawing. This thread-drawing consists of nothing other than bringing complicated dramatic processes back to a simple basic structure. Only when this is recognized and made effective by the director can the result of a drama express itself in the right way. The audience need not be aware of this basic structure. What makes him curious after the first five minutes, what maintains his interest, what finally fills him with satisfaction or horror, are the currents of the soul within him, which are an exact reflection of that basic structure.

He is the best director who is able to imagine a drama in the simplest lines of force.

The few characters who appear in the Hänneschen play represent the playwright's entire props. We recognize them again and again, even in the most intricate dramas and the most individualized characters, the grandfather, Marie Sibylla, Gertrud, Tony and Hänneschen. But we recognize them best in their originality when we watch how the people develop dramatic art out of their primitive, typical experiences.

The idea of nationalizing human institutions,¹ which have so far developed in free competition, today finds sympathy in wide circles. Many shy away from the radical goals of social democracy, which aims to transform the whole of human coexistence into a firmly established state organization. On the other hand, there are repeated efforts to incorporate individual branches of material and spiritual culture, which currently still owe their existence to private enterprise, into the state.

The authors of such endeavors are of the opinion that the shortcomings that free competition and the ruthless struggle of forces entail will be remedied by state supervision.

Dissatisfaction with the existing conditions is the source of all longing for the nationalization of individual living conditions or the entire culture of mankind. This dissatisfaction is also the basis of the essay in No. 1 of the "Dramaturgische Blätter": "Das staatliche Nationaltheater".

The author finds that only confused concepts of the nature of dramatic art exist among the general public, and that the artistic devaluation of the stage results from this ignorance on the part of the public. He demands that the state set the art of the stage more serious tasks and thereby force the public to expect more from the theater than the satisfaction of a subordinate need for entertainment. The public should no longer go to the theater to spend a few hours pleasantly according to their inclination, but should be told by the state how to spend their time in the theater. The stage directors should no longer be forced to act according to the tastes of the audience, but should conduct their office according to ideal points of view, over which the state keeps watch.

The author believes that the theatrical misery will end when no director has to fear that his theater will remain empty if he serves true art because another director serves a shallower taste and lures the audience away from him. The state will - in the author's opinion - make all theaters equal instruments of true art, and all sordid competition will cease.

This is all very well thought out. But it is thought without regard to the relationship between art and the state. Such thoughts always presuppose a state, which cannot exist anywhere where a state is formed by the community of people. The state must, by its very nature, be based on the suppression of the individual. If everything is to be regulated according to rigid formulas, the individual must suppress his independence. The general organization is immediately interrupted if the individual personality wants to assert itself. Art, however, is based on the free development of the personality. And what is not based on this free development must remain in the realm of mediocrity, of the average. One must of course agree with the author of the above-mentioned essay when he says: "It is certainly true that natural talent is the main thing for the actor, but to insist on it alone is the nonsense that has created the intellectual proletariat of the class." But one must reply to him: "The great actor can only owe his existence to natural talent, and the small talent cannot be helped to more than - perhaps useful - mediocrity by the best state institution." The state will always have a tendency to promote this mediocrity. It will perhaps prevent an untalented person from lazily exchanging the art of acting for any other profession; but at the same time it will have the tendency to expel from its sphere the brilliant person who does not want to conform to the fixed norm.

Free competition makes it possible for the genius personality to seek out the area in which it can develop. The omnipotence of the state will simply deprive this personality of its living conditions. The question is quite justified as to whether it is not better if, in the struggle for existence, numerous untalented people are forced into the proletariat so that the few talented people have the freedom to develop, than if everything is pushed down to the average level.

If the theater is nationalized, every artist will be a civil servant. The state will not prefer the greater artist, it will prefer the better civil servant. Those who disagree are not talking about real states, but about an ideal state that leads its existence in cloud cuckoo land. Anyone who has an understanding of the nature and conditions of existence of art would have to admit that a higher branch of culture cannot be better served than by keeping it as free as possible from the influence of the state.

It will be the same with the theater as with many other things. It will heal the damage it has caused on its own.

Turning artists into civil servants will not have the effect of turning artistically flabby and unideal stage managers into art-loving men and actors who have fallen into the "common routine" into highly ambitious people; it will only result in rigid uniformity taking the place of free development, which must necessarily combine its shortcomings with its advantages.

The social regeneration of the acting profession cannot be brought about by turning it into a civil service profession. This class would have gained nothing if the "heroic father" had the rank of a first-class councillor and the "youthful lover" that of an adjunct. That is perhaps a grotesque way of putting it. But it is certain that all suggestions of the kind made by the author of the above-mentioned essay will always appear grotesque if they are measured against ideas taken from reality. Only those who move in such general ideas as those of the author can make such proposals as he does.

The view that the public can be elevated to a higher level of artistic taste by the state seems completely unjustified. Taste can neither be raised nor lowered artificially. If the state creates theaters that do not cater to the taste of the public, the result will not be that the public will acquire a different taste - but the theaters will all remain empty.

Is it an axiom that state power will always cultivate the best possible taste? Only those who answer this question in the affirmative can hope for the salvation of dramatic art from the nationalization of the theater. It takes little practical experience to answer this question in the negative. If free competition prevails, there will always be people with a sense of art and taste who will take up the fight against the crudity of taste and the lack of artistic sense. Once a state decrees from on high that art should be unintelligent, long periods of time will not suffice to repair the damage caused by such a measure.

How does the author of the essay "Das staatliche Nationaltheater" envision the development of dramatic art as such? Imagine a time in which only plays that have been accepted for performance by a state official are performed! Imagine a parliament in which interpellations are tabled because plays have not been accepted! Furthermore, imagine a parliament in which the direction of dramatic art is determined by a party that looks like our Catholic center! The consequences of nationalization are unforeseeable. One must realize that countless things in our dramatic art are only possible because they are wrested from the state. This wresting would have to stop the moment the will of the state became omnipotent in theater matters. Dramatic art itself has to fear even worse from the nationalization of the theater than the art of acting, which cannot exactly become dangerous to the state.

"The actor of the state theater becomes ... from a different point of view to the public" than the acting profession of today, which, "because it lacks the legal benefits enjoyed by the citizen", regards "the often self-created freedoms as its right" and "has the moral concepts of a "free" profession". It may be that the mediocre actor wins if he is clothed with the nimbus of "official honor"; whether art gains anything from this is another question.

Of particular importance, however, is the author's assertion: "As soon as the public's insight into the nature of the art of acting has deepened, the demands on its performance will one day be such that the artistic regeneration of the stage will be conceivable in quiet work. Its realization would of course have to be in the hands of a professional authority appointed by the state, so that there would be no fear of the state stage becoming ossified. It will certainly never develop an outward splendor, but it will only gain by exchanging tawdriness for order and solidity." Yes, order and solidity! In reality, this order and solidity would be a system similar to our police economy. Pedantry and bureaucracy would take the place of "splendor and finery". But this "ostentation and tinsel" are the breeding ground of genuine art. It is true that no real art is possible without luxury and the superfluous in the philistine sense.

The author admits to himself: "It is certainly possible that this version could be accused of exaggerated idealism. It can only be countered with the answer: Either we want a stage art in the true sense of the word, or we renounce its possession; but if we are serious about it, then no demand should be too high." The author thus pronounces his own judgment. "Exaggerated idealism" is the word that must be used to describe his aspirations. He reckons with things that can never be realized; and that is fortunate for art. For it would be a ruin to dramatic and dramatic art if they were realized.

These things are created by dissatisfaction. It always knows what should not be. Basically, it doesn't know what should be. It puts a blue haze in the place of what it does not know. And in doing so, it deceives itself about its inability to create something really useful. Something useful can only be created out of the given circumstances. Those who cannot create something useful set themselves vague goals and resign themselves to empty hopes.

• 1. I am by no means in agreement with all the details of this essay. On the contrary: I believe that the author's goals are to be achieved by quite different means than he himself indicates. Nevertheless, I am reprinting the work here because I believe that it can stimulate a fruitful discussion on important questions of contemporary theater. To provoke such discussions seems to me to be one of the most important tasks of the "Dramaturgische Blätter".

In Vienna, the Burgtheater crisis has been a daily issue for weeks. By the time these lines appear, it may already have found its solution. But how this solution turns out is not the really interesting thing. Something quite different must excite those who take an interest in the development of the theater. For if, as it seems at the moment, Paul Schlenther replaces the previous director of the Burgtheater, Max Burckhard, there can be no question of artistic considerations having played any part in the solution to this question. And that is the sad thing, that things that should only be decided from the point of view of artistic interest are being made dependent on sympathies and antipathies that have nothing to do with art.

When Dr. Max Burckhard took office, no one with understanding could stand up for him. Of all the candidates considered at the time, he must have seemed the least suitable. One could have no other opinion than that he had no relation to either dramatic literature or practical theater. And the first steps he took as director could only confirm such an opinion. He showed himself to be a dilettante in every respect. The roles he cast were almost unbelievable.

The old master of Viennese theater criticism, Ludwig Speidel, rarely used such harsh words of condemnation as he did towards Burckhard's management. As often as he made himself heard in the pages of the "Neue Freie Presse", one could read a bitter dismissal of the new director. But the improbable happened: Ludwig Speidel converted to Max Burckhard. This marked the course of Burckhard's development during his directorship. He has turned the antipathy of knowledgeable people into sympathy. Today, art connoisseurs are his friends and supporters. He has proven that the office gives the mind. He has settled into art. So much so that such a fine connoisseur of the theater as Paul Schlenther can hardly do anything other than continue to lead the Hofbühne in the way Burckhard did. When Schlenther takes Burckhard's place, all that will have happened is that a personality who has become unpopular will have been replaced by a temporarily popular one. The artistic achievements of the Vienna Burgtheater can hardly be given a new character by Paul Schlenther. Indeed, it must even be considered a stroke of luck if the previous director is replaced by the Berlin critic. It could just as well have been that the clique hostile to Burckhard had once again appointed some dilettante to the important post; and it is doubtful that the stroke of luck would have happened a second time, that the dilettante would have become an important expert in a relatively short time.

There are people of whom one can say: they can do whatever they want. Burckhard seems to be one of them. But these people are quite rare. If you have one, you should hold on to him and give him the opportunity to develop his strengths. Instead, Burckhard is torn from his position at the very moment when he begins to show off his unique personality to the full.

It is a well-known fact that Burckhard had to fight for seven years against cliques of actors who were hostile to him, but who were so influential that they could cause the director immense difficulties. Burckhard fought these cliques with energy and achieved many excellent things against their will. If he was not victorious in the end, it can hardly be assumed that a new man will fight the battle with more luck.

The task of the Burg director today is to adapt this unique art institution to the new circumstances. The public will be just as happy with the new forms of drama as with the new forms of acting if they realize that the reform is based on artistic intentions. The public is much less conservative in artistic matters than the so-called "authoritative circles". The public has been forced to understand Arnold Böcklin! Those who only a few years ago would shrug their shoulders as they walked past Böcklin's Pieta now stand before it in adoration, as they always did before the Sistine Madonna. The audience of the Burgtheater will easily be won over to show as much interest in modern art as in the old. Max Burckhard has worked on this development of taste with skill and insight. He should not have been disturbed in his work.

The subject of "theater criticism" is not a pleasant one. It is least of all edifying for the theater professionals themselves. What can't be found under the heading "theater" in our newspapers and journals? Perhaps nowhere is dilettantism more rampant than in this field.

And the worst is the criticism of dramatic performances and the art of acting. The situation is better when it comes to opera criticism. When it comes to musical performances, ignorance and lack of knowledge are basically easy to prove. If you read five lines from a music critic, you will be able to judge whether you are dealing with an expert or a dilettante. But in the course of the last few decades, conditions in this field have also deteriorated considerably. Those who belong to Wagner's artistic circle cannot be absolved of the fact that they have contributed enormously to this deterioration. In the days before the critics of the Wagner school came on the scene, it was a requirement for the music critic to speak about the musical quality of a performance from a professional point of view. He had to know what was possible within the art he was criticizing. He had to speak of the architectonics of the musical work of art. He had to interpret the perception of the ear, and the musical imagination demanded its rights. The Wagner critics began to speak in a completely different key. One hardly read anything about music and musical imagination in their comments. Instead, they talked all the more about all kinds of mysterious states of mind and dark mystical truths or even natural phenomena that were supposed to be expressed in this or that piece of music. Tremendous mischief was and is being done. The most brilliant illustration of this nonsense is Hanslick's fine little book "Vom MusikalischSchönen". A music critic who rejects this booklet cannot be taken seriously. For one can be convinced that he will not speak of music at all in his reviews. He will tell us what is "expressed" in this or that passage of a musical work; but he will owe us everything about the architectonics of a sound work, which is exhausted within what the ear and the sound imagination perceive.

A setback in this area is already clearly audible today. Wagner critics are already being rejected by sensible musicians.

The situation is different with dramatic criticism. Here, dilettantism is more difficult to recognize. There are few people who know where the boundary between dilettantism and connoisseurship lies. Connoisseurship can only be attributed to those who base their judgment on the purely artistic qualities of a work. A drama must be constructed according to the same strictly artistic laws as a symphony.

The matter is confused, however, by the subject matter of dramatic art. This material only concerns the critic to the extent that he has to decide whether or not any reproach is at all suitable for dramatic treatment. This question does not apply to music. For it is entirely form. It has no material. And the injustice of Wagner critics lies precisely in the fact that they want to impose a material on the music by force.

In drama, however, material is not considered in any other way than that just indicated. If further judgment is made about the material, then such a judgment is inartistic. Inartistic are the questions as to whether a material is in itself significant or insignificant, beautiful or ugly, moral or immoral and so on. These things are none of the critic's business. As soon as a material provides what is necessary for dramatic treatment, the critic only has to ask himself whether the artist has brought out what lies in the material, and then how he has treated the material. He must be indifferent to the what of the drama, what matters to him is the how. How the poet introduces the conflict, how he intertwines the threads, how he brings an event to a close, that is what must be discussed.

But unfortunately there is so little mention of this in our theater criticism. The material interest is always in the foreground. And the material interest is the inartistic one in this respect. Imagine transferring the spirit of our drama criticism to the criticism of painting. We would hear whether a depicted landscape is lovely or hideous, beautiful or ugly, attractive or repulsive, whether a person portrayed by the artist is charming or hideous, and so on. But we would hear nothing about whether the painter has succeeded in bringing the picture and background into the right relationship, whether he has created harmony of color or not. We would hear about all the things that are of no concern to us in a painting; but we could glean nothing of the specific painterly aspect from a critique aimed purely at the material.

A great advance in dramatic criticism will lie in the fact that we demand the same connoisseurship from it as we do from the assessment of the visual arts.

Hindering this progress, however, is our theater audience. Who is aware of the purely artistic qualities of a drama? Who demands an assessment of these qualities from the critic? Everything depends on the material - after all, everything presses for the material! And Schiller spoke in vain: The true artistic secret of the master lies in the destruction of the material by the form. Goethe put the same sentiment into the words of "Faust": Consider the what, consider more the how.

With regard to drama, we are stuck in a barbaric taste.

And the art of acting? It is the poor relation of criticism. The wise judges know the least about it. Not even the most elementary things are clear here.

The fact that two actors have to play a role in completely different ways is usually not taken into account. The actor unites three persons in himself when he plays. The first is his everyday human personality, his figure, his face, his nose, his voice and so on; the second is the personality that the poet gives him to play, the Posa, the Hamlet, the Othello and so on. The third is not visible. It stands above both. It uses the first as an instrument to embody the second. And since there are no two people of the same build, no two actors can play a role in the same way. The actor has to create a compromise between the person portrayed by the poet and his own natural constitution.

Only a critic who asks himself whether the actor has succeeded in making that compromise can be considered. Everything else that is written about the art of acting is empty chatter.

Criticism of drama and the art of acting is often judged from too low a point of view. Basically, people think: anyone can write about these things. And indeed, "anyone" writes about it. Precisely because judgment based on purely material considerations is so tempting here, the standards should be set particularly high. We should demand connoisseurship, because connoisseurship is so difficult to distinguish from charlatanry.

But the audience is happy to accept a few pointed remarks about a drama or an acting performance. Claims are taken at face value here whose analogs would simply be laughed at in another field of art. A nicely written feuilleton counts for more than a competent judgment of art. And if the feature writer is even funny! Then nobody cares about his connoisseurship.

It will be difficult to bring about better conditions in this area. But they must be brought about for the benefit of the dramatic and acting arts.

In hardly any other art does the insignificant play such an important role as in acting. Whether an actor moves these or those facial muscles on a certain occasion, whether he moves his right hand or not: that comes into consideration. A whole scene can be disrupted by one bad hand movement by this or that actor.

Unfortunately, we are not so advanced in our acting that we notice a single bad hand movement or an incorrect contraction of a facial muscle. We usually need a whole actor who "spoils everything" to realize how necessary it is for the stage artist to meet the poet in order to bring the latter's intentions to full fruition on stage.

For the theater audience, the actor is the personality who brings the poet's intentions to their true realization.

Therefore it seems to me quite superfluous to talk about whether the art of acting is an art of the first or second rank. Differences in rank are very important in ethical terms; in the field of art they are irrelevant. For in art everything is necessary, even the seemingly trivial. The work of art must be perfect down to the last detail if it is to satisfy the strict demand for a style that is complete in itself. Nothing should disturb the harmony of the whole as an extraneous element. An actor who plays a role one degree more banal than it is meant to be can spoil a great drama.

I seem indifferent to the question of the rank that acting occupies in the ladder of the arts. What is important to me, however, is the problem: how can drama do justice to the tasks set for it by the poets.

Everything revolves around this: does acting have an independent significance alongside drama or not?

I believe that it definitely has such an independent significance. The work of a stage artist is only finished when it is brought to the real stage with the means of dramatic art.

The proof of this is very simple. way. In Shakespeare's time, Hamlet certainly had to be played differently than it is today, using the means of the dramatic art of the time.

We may not play Hamlet any better than it was played in Shakespeare's time, but we play it differently. But if we played it today the way Shakespeare had it played, we would be playing it badly.

But if one has different means of realizing a thing, and one time's realization can be good, the other time bad: the means have an independent meaning.

The art of acting is a means, but a means of independent significance.

How X plays Posa, and that he plays it differently from Y, is what matters.

What is expressed in the personality of Posa is certainly one and the same for all times. How it should be expressed through the art of acting changes from decade to decade.

Therefore we should not speak of the insignificant in the art of acting. Rather, we should think about what is important in this art. It is ridiculous to call the art of acting a reproductive art. Drama is for the true actor what reality, nature, is for the playwright. As productive as the dramatist is towards nature, so productive is the actor towards drama. He elevates the drama into a new, special artistic sphere. If the drama is a piece of nature, seen through the temperament of the playwright, then the performed stage work is a drama, seen through the temperament of the director and the actors.

If we do not want to willfully lower the status of dramatic art, we must accept it as an independent art and reflect on its peculiar technical means, then it will present itself to us as an independent art that is similar to the other arts.

When we have realized this, we will think less about its subordinate rank; . we will be fairer towards it.

The art of acting needs such justice. For today it is often regarded as the stepchild of the arts.

This prejudice is particularly widespread among producing playwrights. It must be overcome.

And it will be overcome the moment we are clear about the relationship between acting and dramatic poetry.

We lack a real technique of dramatic art. It must first be present. Then both poets and actors will recognize it. And then both categories of artists will understand each other.

At present, such an understanding is lacking.